A Modest Proposal

August 20, 2005

If Daily Press staffers could only publish our own dictionary, here are a few unsanctioned words we would be sure to include:

GOOGLE -- VERB. The Internet search engine Google is an everyday tool for journalists. Again, it works perfectly as a verb. According to business reporter Novelda Sommers, "I couldn't do my job without googling a half dozen or so subjects per day."

SQUICKY -- ADJECTIVE. This is beyond slang. Take squishy and add it to icky, and you get squicky: "Eeyyeeww, these month-old chicken fingers are squicky."

SNARKY -- ADJECTIVE. Think of comedian David Spade, but more hip. A snarky response uses snide humor that is never unnecessarily cruel -- which is not to say never cruel, not by a long shot.

TEXT -- VERB. You already know it as a noun. But cell phone techies use "text" as a verb all the time. For example: "Text me when you get to work."

WOOT -- INTERJECTION. It's a mildly sarcastic "hooray," popular with the younger set.